


expectations

by kira_katrine



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Mentorship, Pre-Canon, Starfleet Academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28080078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kira_katrine/pseuds/kira_katrine
Summary: Saru wasn't expecting anyone to come to see him for Visitors' Day at the Academy.
Relationships: Philippa Georgiou & Saru
Comments: 12
Kudos: 36
Collections: Star Trek Holidays 2020





	expectations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wiccy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wiccy/gifts).



Part of Saru still hadn’t been expecting to see Captain Georgiou standing there, even though he’d been told she would be, that she was there to see him. He’d been planning to spend Visitors’ Day studying, doing something productive, since none of the people who might possibly want to visit him on a day like this would ever be able to see him again. And even if they had been allowed, even if they had a means of travel from Kaminar to Earth, he could not really picture them here. 

She wore her new uniform, the one Saru had not yet seen her in until that day, the one with the gold stripes across the shoulders. Philippa Georgiou had recently received her own command--the U.S.S. Shenzhou--and he’d noticed that ever since, she’d taken a bit longer to respond when he wrote to her, hadn’t said quite as much. It was only to be expected--he knew many of his classmates at the Academy would give just about anything for someone like her to correspond with them at all--and that she must be busy with her increased responsibilities. He hadn’t said as much to her either--hadn’t wanted to take up too much of her time.

But there she was, standing in the dorm lobby. Other students stood around, chatting with their friends and families, every so often giving nervous glances in Georgiou’s direction. She hadn’t been captain long, but already she’d started to make a name for herself. Something Saru had learned more about from the news and Academy gossip than he had from Georgiou herself, sometimes.

“Saru,” she said, smiling. “How have you been?”

“What are you doing here?” Saru said. “Captain,” he amended.

“I came to see you, of course,” said Georgiou. “And there’s no need for that, not between us. Not now, anyway.”

“It has been a long time since we’ve seen each other,” Saru said. Someone--now someone else--three different someones, each one's footsteps ever so slightly different--kept running up and down the stairs. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been quite well, thank you,” said Georgiou. “But I didn’t come here just to talk about me. How has your first year at the Academy been?” 

The doors opened with a click and a slight scraping noise every time someone else entered the lobby from outside. Each one brought more noise, another presence or several. “It has been--quite enlightening,” he settled on. Someone on the other side of the room shrieked. He turned sharply to look, ganglia twitching--two girls were near the door, jumping up and down in apparent excitement over who knew what. Nothing to be concerned about.

Georgiou was saying something, but there were too many people, too many sounds, too many different conversations going on, and he couldn’t shake his awareness of all of them, his understanding of none. After this much time, he thought, he should be used to this. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I--I don’t--”

“Shall we go outside?” Georgiou gestured towards the doors. _Perhaps she had noticed._

Walking about the grounds was certainly an improvement. Many of the trees were bare; the sky overcast. Some people were out there, having seemingly had the same idea, but at least there was room to breathe. He could finally tell Georgiou all about the things he’d learned at the Academy--things she probably already knew, he reminded himself, not everyone was just finding everything out for the first time. 

“Have you made any friends here?” Georgiou asked after a pause, after a while of this.

Saru tensed slightly. The truth was, he hadn’t, not really. “I have been getting along amicably with my fellow cadets.”

“So that’s a no.” Georgiou frowned. “Much of the potential of a place like Starfleet Academy is in the relationships you can--”

“I am aware,” Saru cut her off, and immediately regretted it. “I mean to say--you are correct. There is much happening here that I had not fully considered.”

“Such as?”

“Much beyond academics,” Saru said. “I came here to learn, and to prepare myself for service in Starfleet. I suspected I might feel out of place among my classmates--but I did not anticipate just how much.”

“Are you unhappy here?” Georgiou asked.

Saru wasn’t sure what to say. He was, but at the same time he wasn’t, certainly not completely. And he couldn’t admit it to her, in any case. Not after all she’d done to bring him here. Not when she’d dedicated her whole life to all this.

“Let me rephrase that,” Georgiou said. She started to walk in a different direction, off the path they’d been on, a little ways away from anyone else; he followed. “It sounds like you're not entirely happy at the Academy. And like perhaps you don’t have anyone here to talk to about that. So if you’d like to talk to me about it, you can.”

“When I first learned what the Federation was,” Saru said, “I knew it was composed of a wide range of species. I thought perhaps it would not matter that I am the only one of my kind ever to come here.”

“But it does,” Georgiou said. “Of course it does.”

“I say things,” Saru said. “About my life as it has been--not long explanations, mind you, mere mentions as my classmates of many other species frequently give--and everything _stops_. They look at me as if what I have said is--unreasonable, perhaps disturbing to them.”

“What you have experienced is quite different from most cadets, it is true,” Georgiou said. “But you will find there are many in Starfleet who would appreciate a unique perspective like yours.”

“And what if I never make it that far?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Georgiou asked.

“I feel, in many ways, so far behind,” Saru said. “I have only just been introduced to much of the technology my classmates have lived with all their lives. To the basic history of the Federation. To all of the greater world beyond Kaminar, and it is fascinating, it truly is, but there is simply so much.”

“I fully believe you are capable, Saru,” Georgiou said. “I said as much when I recommended your acceptance here, and I stand by it.”

“With all due respect,” Saru said, “perhaps you do not know me. You know nothing of most of my life, either before we met or since. You certainly do not know most of what has happened here at the Academy.”

“I know enough,” Georgiou said. “Would you rather I had not recommended you?”

“I do not know.” He’d said it. He’d said what he hadn’t wanted to let her know.

There was a pause. “Oh,” said Georgiou. 

“I almost find that--” _I may as well explain, now that I’ve brought this out._ “I almost find that learning is losing its appeal.”

“What do you mean, Saru?” Georgiou asked.

“It is no longer something to be done for the sake of it,” Saru said. “It is yet another thing I must do in order to survive.”

Georgiou looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment. “I see,” she said. “Is there anything I can do?” Saru stared at her blankly. “I am the one who encouraged you to apply here, after all. It would be a shame for it to go this way.”

“I appreciate it,” Saru said. “But I do not think so. I think I will simply have to figure this out on my own.”

“I understand,” Georgiou said. “But don’t let yourself stay too alone, all right? You can still always write to me.”

“Thank you.”

“And I fully believe that if you were not the exact type of person who belonged here,” Georgiou said, “not only would you not have been accepted--I don’t think you and I would ever have met. And that would have been quite a shame.”

Saru wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Georgiou went on. “When you left your home planet,” she said, “you told me you were tired of living in fear. That you wanted something more. Remember that, Saru. You are at your best when you remember that.”

The seeds he’d taken from home were all still tucked away safely, in a box in a drawer. He would have loved to start planting them, to see just that little bit of home. But the plants they could one day grow into didn’t belong here; he knew that somehow. 

When he’d first arrived at the Academy, he’d been paired with a roommate--a human. The arrangement had not lasted--it hadn’t taken long for both of them to realize it was not sustainable for Saru. He could not stand having another person, with an entirely unfamiliar nature, constantly within his own space, forcing him to be aware of their every move as well as his own. Fortunately, when they realized what was happening, those in charge had been accommodating.

And yet, the experience had still put doubt into Saru. Clearly, the ability to live with others was something they considered quite important. It had been one thing when he had still lived among his own kind--at least they all understood what the others were sensing, and those around him were familiar enough to be trusted. Already, he had not lived up to Starfleet’s expectations. He knew it would not be the last time. He would have to make up for it somehow--but there was so far to go.

When Saru had first made contact with what had turned out to be the Federation, he’d had no idea of all that was out there. That there was a Starfleet to join. That there was an Earth. That there was a place where he could go and learn everything he’d always been curious about and more. At best, it had crossed his mind that he might, perhaps, be able to escape the Watchful Eye, and even that was only a distant possibility. 

Once he’d found all of this, he’d wanted it all--just hadn’t been sure what that all meant. To learn everything he could; to explore the galaxy; to help others the way he’d been helped; to be a part of this Federation. Over time, though, some things had become more clear to him.

He wanted to be like her, he'd realized. Like Philippa Georgiou. She was doing all of those things--had introduced him to the idea that many of those things were possible. But now, in the course of his first year so far at the Academy, he’d seen her reach a new high point in her career--and at the same time, felt himself failing, like he couldn’t live up to what he’d hoped for.

 _But still, she was here,_ he thought. She still thought he had a place there.

Unless, of course, she was just trying to convince herself she’d done the right thing. Unless he was too.

He could never know. There was so much he could never know, and that was the worst of it all. All he could do was keep learning. Keep looking. Four years. That was all it was. He’d put up with much worse for much longer.

A dorm room at Starfleet Academy was no place for the beautiful flowers and ferns of Kaminar, that he knew. He still had hope, though, that they’d find a place with him someday.


End file.
